You could certainly hear the nearly 100 residents loud and clear at the March 3, Village of Manorhaven Q& A meeting, as they spoke with one voice overwhelming rejecting the  Manorhaven zoning study directed by Manorhaven Mayor Avena and the Board of Trustees.

Two question, however, remained unasked and unanswered Who asked for this zoning and development study to be done? Manorhaven residents didn’t ask for it. Greater Port Washington residents didn’t ask for it.

Who then did?

Perhaps the answer is in Mayor Avena’s own words,  “The goal of this study is to balance the needs of the community with the rights of property owners.” So it was the property owners

Whose needs does this zoning study meet?

Not the needs of Manorhaven’s residents, who already are burdened with the existing problems of living in the most densely populated village in NYS. Not the needs of greater Port Washington, whose schools, traffic and services will now be Impacted by it.

So it meets the needs of the property owners.

Large property owners who are now given the rights in this proposed zoning study to build not 96 homes on a property but 200,  not one- or two-story homes but three, not consider only waterfront properties to rezone, but add several other large inland properties to rezone for hundreds and hundreds of condos as well.

The right for them not to build the least number of allowable homes but irresponsibly, to build the highest number of high density three-story condos they can. And to be allowed to do this in the already most densely populated village in New York State!

Unfortunately, from the start of this process the voices that remained unheard, were those of resident’s. They went unheard as they asked for a village survey of their wants and needs to be done.

They went unheard as they asked for an Impact Study to evaluate how more development would affect them and their village be done.

They went unheard as they asked for a state Local Waterfront Revitalization Program to protect the waterfront to even be considered. Instead, Cameron Engineering heard Village officials ask them to do the one thing the majority of residents never asked for,  a zoning and development study

Mayor Avena may have chosen to balance the needs of 8,000 residents with the rights of four property owners but he will have to rescind this irresponsible zoning and development study in order to silence residents objections to it.

Lucretia Steele,

Former Village of Manorhaven Deputy Mayor